Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a network authentication system and, more particularly, to an apparatus and system using a plurality of authentication servers having different databases.
Description of the Related Art
In association with the infrastructure of a communication network, various kinds of functions to fortify security have been proposed. Network authentication is also one of those functions. A network authentication system is mainly comprised of terminal apparatuses such as PCs or the like, authentication switches, and authentication servers. As a fundamental operation of the authentication system, first, an authentication request packet is outputted from the terminal apparatus such as a PC to the authentication switch. When the authentication request packet is received, on the basis of authentication information in the reception packet, the authentication switch inquires of the authentication server whether or not the authentication information has been registered. When a fact that the authentication information has been registered is notified from the authentication server, the authentication switch enables a source MAC address of the authentication request packet to be communicated.
In the network authentication switch, hitherto, only one server could be designated as an authentication server to a target PC/user (there was a redundancy forming function of the authentication server as an existing function) and there was also a function for designating a RADIUS server on an authenticating method unit basis. For example, in the Official Gazette of JP-A-2007-280221, a plurality of authentication servers are constructed in order to authenticate one client PC.